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Published: February 24th 2007
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My stomach is tossing and turning on Paul’s last morning in Cairo, and I can’t entirely tell if it’s the sadness of our parting or the parasite that’s left him laid up in bed for much of the past week. Certain assumptions I’d made just a few days ago about my indomitable health are turning out, it seems, to have been a tad bit premature. In fact, the gloating email I’d sent to my mother about my body’s adapting to Third World conditions - including certain rueful references to my distended belly and a UNICEF poster campaign - is proving to be regrettable for more than the most obvious reasons.
Paul’s managed to show a maniacal contempt for self-preservation, exhausting his last few days in Egypt with a frenzy of shopping and sight-seeing. In Coptic Cairo he manages to kill two birds with one stone, casting an admiring eye toward the bell tower of the Hanging Church while haggling over the prices of statues and lamps. In just a few weeks he’s shown a remarkable savviness at the bargaining table - the lessons of corporate America proving surprisingly adaptable to the bazaars and market stalls of Cairo. I
suspect we could all learn a thing or two watching him negotiate, his eyes narrowly set, his happy-go-lucky smile betraying not the slightest hint of the jackal within. A typical round of bargaining might go something like this:
PAUL : “How much for this priceless treasure of antiquity?”
LUCKLESS VENDOR: “Ah, the burial mask of Shepshatsharmsis! That is three thousand Egyptian pounds, my friend.”
PAUL: “Right. Good. Let’s say thirty.”
LUCKLESS VENDOR: “My friend, those are precious gemstones set around the crown. Two thousand!”
PAUL: “Okay, I’m thinking more like thirty.”
LUCKLESS VENDOR: “Ten men lost their lives recovering it from the treacherous sands of Gilf Kebir. I cannot go below one thousand.”
PAUL: “Yeah, I’m really happy with thirty right now.”
LUCKLESS VENDOR: “Please, my children are hungry. Five hundred is my final offer.”
PAUL: “Sure. That’s swell. Why don’t we call it thirty?”
LUCKLESS VENDOR: “There is neither light nor hope in this world.”
PAUL: “Do you guys gift-wrap?”
It’s a routine he worked to perfection in Luxor - a city whose vendors would grimace and exchange poignant eye signals when he came strutting down the street. He’s worked under the simple assumption that a seller’s
friendliness is directly proportional to the vigor with which he’s reamed his last customer. When a guy grumbles into his chest as he forks over a statuette of the Sphinx, Paul suspects he’s done well. If he offers us two brightly colored papyrus bookmarks - “A gift from Egypt!” - we know we’ve been had, and I have to more or less coax Paul from tossing himself under the wheels of a bus as we haul our overpriced loot back to the hotel.
For all the shopping he’s done so far, it’s not until these last few hours that Paul puts together the frightful tally, realizing that almost none of the booty he’s bringing back to the States will make it much further than his own coffee table. There’s a painful moment in the taxi to Zamalek, as he rattles off the names of friends and co-workers and former roommates whose fragile affections could be irreparably shattered without the necessary Nefertiti keychain or funereal mug of Tutankhamen. His parents, who wrapped up their own trip to Egypt just a month ago, are scratched from the list. His girlfriend, in spite of the bracelets and necklaces he picked up
for her in Dahab, is still due a refrigerator magnet of Ramses II, at least.
We enlist Haytham, a
CouchSurfing friend I’d met on my first night in Cairo, to help us sniff out souvenir shops. Haytham’s a big, bald, belly-laughing kind of guy who has no qualms about circling the streets of Zamalek in his friend’s sedan, hunting for tchotchkes as the clock pushes midnight. We pass embassies set back from the leafy streets - the armed guards slouching with their rifles out front, flags flapping listlessly over darkened compounds. In a swank hotel we find a shop selling overpriced curios, and Haytham shows off some bargaining wiles of his own. He laughs good-naturedly - his broad shoulders shaking - and brings the price down by a third. Paul picks up a few statuettes of grave gods and pharaohs, their small painted faces staring soberly across the ranks of postcards and coffee table books.
Back at the hostel he’s packing and repacking his bags, his luggage having swollen appreciably in the past three weeks. A lamp with colorful glass panes is carefully wrapped in gym socks and t-shirts; two stone statues of Anubis are proving, in retrospect, to be less than practical. When he’s finished he slouches wearily on the sofa in the lounge, while Amer - one of the hostel’s staff - offers a farewell pull from his water pipe. It’s been a long, strange odyssey, not least because we’ve managed to make it through three weeks without tearing at each other’s throats. On the sidewalk outside, while Amer haggles with a cab driver, we exchange a brief hug. It’ll be a full day before he’s back in Boulder, a few more before he’s managed to shake off the jet lag and the doldrums of being home. I promise to call every few days at sunrise to sing “
Allahu akbar!” into the phone. He slings his pack to the roof, the driver impatiently leaning on the gas. Then the car sputters off, honking as it merges into the flow of traffic, its taillights joining a stream of red that pours into the gathering darkness.
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